Description
THE IRISH TOP 10 BESTSELLER
A gripping investigation into one of Irish historys greatest mysteries Great Hatred reveals the true story behind one of the most significant political assassinations to ever have been committed on British soil
Heartstopping The book is both forensic and a pageturner and ultimately deeply tragic for Ireland as much as for the murder victim
MICHAEL PORTILLO
Gripping from start to finish McGreevy turns a forensic mind to a political assassination that changed the course of history uncovering a trove of unseen evidence in the process
ANITA ANAND author of The Patient Assassin
Invaluable IRISH TIMES
Intellgient and insightful IRISH INDEPENDENT
On 22 June 1922 Sir Henry Wilson the former head of the British army and one of those credited with winning the First World War was shot and killed by two veterans of that war turned IRA members in what was the most significant political murder to have taken place on British soil for more than a century His assassins were welleducated and pious men One had lost a leg during the Battle of Passchendaele Shocking British society to the core the shooting caused consternation in the government and almost restarted the conflict between Britain and Ireland that had ended with the AngloIrish Treaty just five months earlier Wilsons assassination triggered the Irish Civil War which cast the darkest of shadows over the new Irish State
Who ordered the killing Why did two Englishborn Irish nationalists kill an Irishborn British imperialist What was Wilsons role in the Northern Ireland government and the violence which matched the intensity of the Troubles fifty years later Why would Michael Collins who risked his life to sign a peace treaty with Great Britain want one of its most famous soldiers dead and how did the Wilson assassination lead to Collins tragic death in an ambush two months later
Drawing upon newly released archival material and neverbeforeseen documentation Great Hatred is a revelatory work that sheds light on a moment that changed the course of Irish and British history for ever
McGreevy provides more than the anatomy of a political murder in reconstructing this era of blood poverty and wartime trauma he also gives full expression to the terrible forces that WB Yeats once called the fanatic heart and the great hatred
THE TIMES
Thoughtful and wellresearched an important and valuable addition to the library of the Irish Revolution
PROFESSOR DIARMAID FERRITER University College Dublin
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